broken record

I'm tired. I don't feel good. I'm tired. I don't feel good.

These two thoughts run through my mind every day. Then they are followed by "you felt like that yesterday and the day before. You can't possibly feel run down and/or sick every day. Stop complaining. Nobody wants to hear it anyway. Everybody is tired after work."

Whenever my husband asks me how I feel the response is one of those two statements. Then, once again, the bully side of me steps in with a not-so-nice response.

I've talked to my care team about it. My nurse worries from time to time. She asks some questions and based on my response either tells me what to work on or orders blood work. My nutritionist responds in a similar fashion and we go over my meal plan and what I've been eating and make adjustments from there. My therapist takes an entirely different approach. She tells me that it's normal. It's a common part of recovery and I'm right where I need to be...in the middle on ThisSucksTown (my words. Not hers). She tells me that I've been ignoring my body for so long that finally tuning into it is overwhelming. I feel things on a larger scale. A normal end of the week tiredness to somebody else feels like fatigue to me. It can get to the point where I need to take a nap or I would fall over. No part of that feels normal.

My cycle has finally started to regulate. That's a positive. The negative? For the past two months it has been accompanied by illness. Not "oh I have cramps and feel bloated" illness but full blown flu symptoms. It sucks more than I can explain. The cause? Perhaps the energy that my hormones use weakens my immune system. The result?? Feeling crappy for 2 weeks out of the month. That's HALF of a month! I can't spend that much time feeling so run down.

Here we are 7 days out and I'm exhausted and have the hunger lever of a 17 year old boy. I knew recovery would be hard but this is so much more that I signed up for. I'm convinced that I'll feel like this forever. It's true that while smack in the middle of the eating disorder my body was suffering but I didn't physically feel it. Now that my body is getting healthy I feel terrible. This doesn't make sense to me. I can only hope that my treatment team is right and this will all even out. I feel like I'm just a spectator watching all the changes from the sidelines. I look forward to the day that I'll have the energy to actually participate in the game.